The Best Books on How to Quit Smoking Are Free

Nicotine addicts are easy prey. Just take a look at the myriad adverts to stop smoking the easy way, quit smoking without pain, simple smoking cessation methods, nicotine replacement therapies and a seemingly endless gallery of quick, easy, almost magical methods to be free from nicotine addiction. The huge irony here is that the vast majority of former smokers were successful by using a largely unadvertised and essentially free method: their mind.

Yes, sure, people need to make money and considering the thousands you've spent on cigarettes then spending a bit of money so as not to spend another thousand on nicotine is an understandable investment. But the most important investment you need to make is in reprogramming your mind. How to do that is largely the focus of this blog. But I have found two books that come very close to my initial intention, and best of all, they are both free online.

"Never Take Another Puff" by Joel Spitzer is available as a free pdf file. The book is essentially a collection of Joel's articles and the focus is on understanding how nicotine works and how it generates addictive behaviour. The obstacles to being nicotine-free are largely a conscious misunderstanding of unconscious forces that are a consequence of the methods of action of nicotine. Joel's Quit Smoking Library also includes numerous audio and video quit smoking guides.

Joel Spitzer is the education director of Freedom from Nicotine, a forum founded by John R. Polito whose own ebook is entitled "Freedom from Nicotine, The Journey Home." This book is largely inspired by Joel's work but is better structured with a clear narrative and a wealth of links to recent research papers and documents. If you ever had the sneaking feeling that so-called nicotine replacement therapies were just a scam to keep you addicted to nicotine and that the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries were conspiring to keep you enslaved, then here's some proof for you.

“Very few consumers are aware of the effects of nicotine, i.e., its addictive nature and that nicotine is a poison.” June 24, 1978, Memorandum: Future Consumer Reaction to Nicotine, Brown & Williamson (now part of RJR). Read the book for many more such quotes. Tobacco companies are essentially drug companies that specialize in just one very specific drug: nicotine. The gradual move away from smoking is being replaced by other delivery systems and the human addiction to nicotine will continue.

Both books have their mantras: Never Take Another Puff; or, No Nicotine Today. Slogans and mantras are an important part of your reprogramming. It is important that your rational mind understands how your unconscious mind works and thereby be able to put in place effective strategies to win both the biochemical and psychological battles ahead. "Battles?!" I hear you cry."But what about an easy quick fix?" Some freedoms are surely worth fighting for. Step back and look at the numerous assaults on our personal freedoms on a daily basis. Nicotine addiction is just one of many forms of enslavement. The freedom to be fully human, fully conscious and knowledgeable beings is being eroded by stealth.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."
Marianne Williamson, 1992 [erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela]

The two books above are very close to what I wanted to write myself. I am thankful for finding them so early in my quest. It also means that I will focus on how each and every one of us can find our own personal path to freedom from nicotine. Every mind is unique and so every nicotine prison has its own unique key to unlock the door.

Free NHS Stop Smoking Quit Kit

Smokers are being offered a free “quit kit”, featuring calming audio downloads and a stress toy, in an effort to help them kick their habit in the new year.

The NHS Stop Smoking Quit Kit, ordered online or over the phone, will provide smokers with a range of aids to help them to give up, including a toothbrush [absolutely crucial] and a “health and wealth” wheel to calculate the money saved by ditching their cigarettes.

Some useful statistics from this Times article. Smoking related diseases currently cost the NHS £2.7 billion a year but the government makes £9.9 billion a year from tobacco taxes. This also assumes that 'smoking related diseases' really are due to smoking as the two people I know who died of lung cancer had never smoked - air pollution anybody? The cost of this Stop Smoking Quit Kit is £2 - less than half the cost of a packet of fags in the UK.

Some 44% of smokers will resolve to stop smoking in the new year (is 'resolve' the right word here?) and only 5% will have truly quit by the end of the year. As usual with news articles it isn't clear if this is 5% of 44% - and hence just 2.2% of smokers overall - or 5% of smokers, giving a success rate of 11% of those who vowed to quit.

As usual, the NHS keeps pumping money to the pharmacos for alternative nicotine drug delivery systems, euphemistically and erroneously called nicotine replacement therapies. They don't work because the addiction is not to smoking but to nicotine and the alternative delivery systems suck in terms of buzz. Except that the NHS cannot be seen to support things like electronic cigarettes as this would look like supporting a habit rather than trying to stop it.

If you like receiving freebies in the post, then the new kits are available by calling the NHS Smoking Helpline 0800 0665 826, or visiting the website http://www.nhs.uk/smokefree.